Citizen consensus councils

A citizen consensus council
is a microcosm of a larger population where citizens dialogue
to deep agreement about issues of common concern. It is usually
a group of 12-24 diverse citizens selected at random from (or
to be demographically representative of) their organization,
community, country, etc. A citizen consensus council deliberates
about issues concerning the population from which it was selected,
and is professionally facilitated
to a consensus about how to address
those issues. Its final statement is released both to appropriate
authorities and to the larger population it represents, usually
through the media. After that, the council usually disbands,
just as a jury does when its work is done.

Dynamics of citizen consensus councils

The defining characteristics of a citizen consensus
council are:

1) It is a group of citizens whose diversity reflects
that of a larger population.
2) It is facilitated to a consensus.

It is the dynamics between DIVERSITY
and CONSENSUS that generate the level of "people's wisdom"
that is so powerfully present in this approach. Wisdom depends on the breadth and depth
of people's perspectives. Diversity brings the breadth:
together, diverse people have a wide range of perspectives. The
depth comes from people having to go deeper in order to find
the common ground underlying their differences, which is necessary
to come to agreement. Also, through dialogue towards consensus, each person's perspective
broadens, steadily including more of what the others see. Often
dramatic leaps of creativity happen when people start seeing
more broadly; connections and possibilities start to sizzle;
and suddenly the group is coming up with alternatives that satisfy
all their needs and perspectives -- and more. This is true consensus
process (from Latin, consentire, to sense or feel together)
and it generates true wisdom. Furthermore, since it is so broadly satisfying,
and was created by a diverse group embodying the diverse values
and life experience of the larger community, the larger population
is more likely to respond positively to the group's proposals
than to proposals created by experts or politicians.

The nature of a council's "representativeness"
- It is important to know that a citizen
consensus council is not representative in the usual political
sense. Participants are not speaking for anyone but themselves.
If they do happen to be leaders of groups, they need to set those
roles aside and act as individuals while participating in the
council. However, they can and should bring every aspect of themselves
to the table, including whatever perspectives they happen to share
with the groups they lead or are part of. Their role as participants
in a citizen consensus council -- which they can best serve simply
by being themselves -- is to collectively embody the diverse
perspectives and capacities of the larger population from which
they were collectively drawn. As they learn that the interests
of the groups they're each associated with will be taken care
of by the process of dialogue and consensus, they can ease up
on their assertiveness and position-holding, freeing the consensus
council to discover deeper, newer ways to engage with the issues
they face.

The nature of a council's catalytic role - Another major
factor which is easy to overlook when first encountering this
approach is that the relationship between
a citizen consensus council and its larger population is as important
as the operation of the council, itself. At the very least,
the council must report to that population when it is done with
its work. Beyond that, there can be a popular expectation developed
around the council's deliberations which adds to the impact of
what the council says. That expectation can come about through
PR hoopla and/or from it having a certain institutionalized status
within the community (e.g., it is part of the town charter). And,
since a primary purpose of such a council is to raise the quality
of dialogue in the larger population, a council's impact can be
enhanced by efforts to organize or evoke such popular dialogue
explicitly around its findings. Finally, the power of the council
is dependent on its ability to clearly reflect the diverse views
and latent wisdom of the larger population, and so its proceedings
should be clearly free of any outside bias or special interest
influence.

Issues in the formation and operation of citizen consensus
councils

Many forms of citizen consensus council have come into being.
Variables include:

the nature of the larger population from which the council
is selected

the number of participants

how participants are selected

the council's mandate (e.g., expectations; is it open-ended
or is there a topic; who, if anyone, is it advising; etc.)

meeting time and frequency

whether it is a standing council with an ongoing membership
or, more usually, a one-time group that disbands after one successful
exploration together

the style and quality of facilitation used

information access (especially the role of expert witnesses
or briefing materials -- and what efforts are made to ensure
an unassailable balance of perspectives)

media participation (especially whether the process is filmed)

whether it is an established part of an institutionalized,
periodic process

Since this form (citizen consensus council) is new and (to
my knowledge) its variations have never been collected up and
articulated AS variations of a single type of process, there is
great need and opportunity for research into these variables.
I suspect that different designs will be appropriate for different
purposes. However, there may be general principles we could learn
that would apply to all uses and forms (such as those listed at
the beginning of this article). Our understanding of random selection
versus scientific demographic selection (for example) could be
greatly enhanced with some research -- perhaps even discovering
patterns of replicability comparable to those involved in scientific
experiments. (See A "scientific"
democratic process?)

Existing forms of citizen consensus council

Variations of citizen consensus councils for which I have found
instructions, expertise or replicable models include:

a) Danish consensus
conferences (aka citizen technology panels) promoted
in the US by the Loka
Institute based on the Danish
model, in which the government brings together 15 people selected
to represent the demographics of the whole population, and gives
them a technological issue about which to recommend policy. They
interview expert witnesses from across the spectrum of opinion,
and then are facilitated to a consensus statement of policy recommendations
which is presented to the government and the media. See Ordinary
citizens evaluate technology for an introductory U.S. experiment
with this approach.

b) Canada's experiment:
"The People's Verdict" - In 1991 Maclean's
magazine scientifically selected a dozen citizens representative
of Canada's ideological, geographical, gender and racial diversity,
and gave them three days to come up with a consensus vision for
Canada, successfully facilitated by a team from Harvard led by
Getting to Yes co-author Roger Fisher. Maclean's
and Canadian TV gave the process and its results extensive coverage
in July 1991.

c) Wisdom Councils
use a form of open-ended, extremely creative consensus process
created by consultant Jim Rough called Dynamic Facilitation. 12-24
people chosen at random from the relevant population explore and
articulate the concerns of that population and directions they
want to move in. Unlike the other forms, wisdom council's have
no topic, making them ideal for surfacing broad and emergent issues
and dramatically creative options. Of all the proposals I've
seen, establishing an official national Wisdom Council would provide
the highest leverage for upgrading our democracy and intelligently
handling the serious issues we face. Ideally, it would be done
as part of a broader program with many other elements (see A New Paradigm Democracy Movement?)

d) The National
Commons is a project which convenes diverse people who
are already working on a particular social problem from across
the political spectrum, to help them come to consensus. Unlike
in the other forms of citizen consensus panel, the consensus people
finally reach in a National Commons dialogue can be immediately
implemented, since they and their associates are the people
working on the problem.

I also know of two forms of citizen deliberation that are closely
related to citizen consensus councils, but don't quite fit the
definition. They are modeled on traditional juries, but don't
necessarily use consensus. However, they would likely play significant
roles in evolving to a society based on citizen consensus standards.
They are:

e) Citizen
juries organized by the Jefferson Center - "In
a Citizens Jury® project, a randomly selected and demographically
representative panel of citizens meets for four or five days to
carefully examine an issue of public significance. The jury of
citizens, usually consisting of 18 individuals, serves as a microcosm
of the public. Jurors are paid a stipend for their time. They
hear from a variety of expert witnesses and are able to deliberate
together on the issue. On the final day of their moderated hearings,
the members of the Citizens Jury present their recommendations
to the public."

Integration with other democratic and co-intelligent approaches

Citizen consensus councils are neither necessary nor sufficient
for a co-intelligent political order. However, I believe they
provide us with the most powerful step we could take in that direction.
To increase that power even further, we need to create synergies
between citizen consensus councils and other forms of co-intelligence
and democratic politics. Articles where I explore this include: